Why, God - Why Me?

This is a hard-hitting look at an uncomfortable subject: sexual abuse of children. Opening with a black and white montage of images of frightened and wary looking children, the voiceover narration describes, quite frankly, bits and pieces of episodes of child sexual abuse. After this introduction, a narrator cites the high incidence of this type of tragedy, and then invites viewers to hear the story of one such case which happened in Knox County, Maine. Again, using a series of black and white stills, an unnamed woman relates her childhood. Abused by her father when she was a toddler, she was then left with two different uncles (who both abused her.) When she was seven, she was raped by two of her brother's friends, and her brother. Years later, she married, and because of the damage to her internal organs, was forced to adopt. She adopted a daughter and a son. Her husband sexually abused both. This is a veritable onslaught of tragedy, and therein lies the problem. Because of the introduction, the viewer is led to believe that what will follow is going to be a typical case of child sexual abuse. One doesn't need to doubt the truth of the story to disbelieve in its "universality". Six different men before the age of seven is surely not the typical case of abuse. If such a story, especially with the husband who abuses two-year old boys, were advanced as the idea for a fictional movie, it would be tossed out. Sexual abuse of children is a serious subject, and this film addresses it as such. It's just that the point could have been made so much better by a less melodramatic (albeit true) story. As it is, the audience can't help but believe that this is a one-of-a-kind story, the exact opposite of what the film's producers meant to say. Not recommended. (See BLACK MAGIC for availability.)